OT: What's your weather like now? (not about AGW)

Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:36 pm   

This is not intended to spark off another GW debate. It was
evident that those of you in Europe and N.America have just had
one of the coldest winters in recent years. I'm curious about the
temperartures you're currently experiencing now that we're
approaching the middle of March.

Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:36 pm   

pimpom <pimpom_at_invalid.invalid>
wibbled on Tuesday 09 March 2010 18:24


We've had colder (Southern England) though not recently.

I would say, in a purely handwaving way, that this winter has been more like
those of my early childhood and the intervening ones have been unusually
warm - ie this is normal.

Anyway, it could all just be random weather cycles.

--
Tim Watts

Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.

Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:36 pm   

pimpom wrote:

Willamette Valley -- we're at 600 feet and we got a bit of snow last night.

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com

Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:36 pm   

On Tue, 9 Mar 2010 23:54:02 +0530, "pimpom" <pimpom_at_invalid.invalid>
wrote:


REALLY cold here in AZ... 56ºF! at 11:30AM Tuesday, March 9, 2010.

We've had light rain for the last three days, which means snow for
those east of us

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
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The only thing bipartisan in this country is hypocrisy

Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:38 pm   

On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:29:05 -0800, Tim Wescott
<tim_at_seemywebsite.now> wrote:


And I'm very near where you grew up, I suppose, just off of
hwy 212 and living on Zion hill at 800' elevation. I also
just got a small spate of snow earlier last night and had a
small dusting of it this morning when I woke up (melted off,
quickly) and I expect some possible, later today.

However, the month of January was the third warmest January
on record.

http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Snow-in-mountains-but-Portlands-dry-and-warm-82713242.html

Jon

Tue Mar 09, 2010 8:10 pm   

Jon Kirwan wrote:

Willamette Valley....that's in western US, isn't it? Oh yes,
you're in Oregon, aren't you, Jon?

It's warmed up quite a bit here. The thermometer on my porch read
about 76 F at 1 pm this afternoon and 67 F at 3 am.last night.
It's 12:30 am and 68 F now. Looks like it's going to be slightly
cooler than last night.

Tue Mar 09, 2010 8:21 pm   

pimpom wrote:

I live near Nice but on the Italian side. It has rained much more than
usual, which isn't considered a bad thing. Now the Mimosae are fiowering and
our tortoise has woken up from hibernation, so it's going to be warmer. It's
mainly the complainers that give you an erroneous impression.

Tue Mar 09, 2010 8:24 pm   

pimpom wrote:


In Western Washington, we've just experienced a cold snap. It was in the
high 50's over the weekend (and its been warm for weeks), but it dropped to
about 35 yesterday and we got a few snow flurries.

It must be those @$%$&^(& Iranians and their damned nuclear winter!

--
Paul Hovnanian paul_at_hovnanian.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Have gnu, will travel.

Tue Mar 09, 2010 8:25 pm   

On Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:28:55 +0530, "pimpom"
<pimpom_at_invalid.invalid> wrote:


Yes. Near Mt. Hood, west side of it by about 15 miles or so.

Use google maps and look for "SE Zion Hill Dr., Damascus,
Oregon 97089" There will be two hills, with Zion Hill drive
on the southern one. Which is the one I'm on. The most
forested area on the north side of the south hill is at least
partly mine. I own a fair number of acres there and looking
to buy more.

Jon

Tue Mar 09, 2010 8:43 pm   

Jon Kirwan wrote:

Indeed, although I grew up about 200 yards from downtown Damascus* and
you're considerably further out. I think you may even be out of the
school district for the grade school I attended (Damascus Union),
although kids in your area would be attending Sam Barlow High, same as me.

* That's a joke, son -- in the 70's the highway department only deigned
to put up one "Damascus**" sign, directly across from my dad's shop. If
you stood in the right spot in front of his shop you could see between
the sign boards. We told people we were "deep in the heart of downtown
Damascus".

** Damascus, Oregon was fairly rural at that point, and was never an
incorporated town until 2002. In the 1970's Damascus was a moderate
bump in the road, with my dad's shop, a few other stores, a gas station,
later a modest shopping center, and not much else to slow down traffic
going from Portland to Mt. Hood. Had we been further from civilization
we would probably have been a real town, but given the proximity to
Portland and Oregon City we were mostly a collection of farmland,
forest, and inane housing developments. With too many farms to really
be suburban and too many housing developments for locals to necessarily
know one another I used to call it 'sub-rural'.

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com

Tue Mar 09, 2010 8:46 pm   

Jim Thompson wrote:

Brrrrrr! 56ºF is about as cold as it ever got here this winter -
*at night* (it was a mild winter). Over here it's in the mid-70s
around noon and in the high 60s at 2-3 am.

Coincidentally, 56ºF is the minimum temp given by Yahoo Weather
for my town for tonight and last night. I started a thread about
that yesterday in the NG 24hoursupport.helpdesk as there's such
a wide discrepancy between Yahoo's figure and my own reading. My
thermometer is not a precision instrument, but it agrees quite
well with what it feels like.

Right now (1:00 am), I'm sitting near the open door of my den.
It's gotten just a wee bit chilly, so I put on a light jacket a
few minutes ago.

Tue Mar 09, 2010 9:00 pm   

Tim Wescott wrote:

Here (so. az) it has been an unusually warm winter. I think only
three or four days "below freezing" (and never below high 20'sF).
The citrus fruit is sickeningly sweet having all those extra arm
days to ripen. This despite being at a low spot (confluence of
two washes -- so subject to cold air flowing down out of the
mountains) in town. E.g., in years past, we've seen 15 degree
nights (cold for this part of the country).

Unfortunately (I would be *shot* if my neighbors heard this
"complaint") it has been raining *every* weekend for the past
month or so. While I appreciate the rainfall, I have grown
to strongly dislike overcast days! (wonder how I ever lived
with that sort of crap "year-round" for all those years! :< )

We'll see how much we "pay" for all of this come Summer...

Tue Mar 09, 2010 10:16 pm   

pimpom wrote:

had 21 days in a row where the high temp never even broke zero F.

As for the GW debate, I get a real kick out of the loonies who look at local weather and use this to predict whether AGW is real or
not. All you need to do is look at glaciers and polar ice caps.

http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/ice-seaice.shtml
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

The only two number you need to remember are the Heat of Fusion for water 80 cal/g or (334 kJ/kg) and the specific heat of water 1
cal/g K or (4.187 kJ/kg K).

It takes a lot of heat to melt ice. When the ice gets melted, then that 80 to 1 buffering effect is gone and things will change a
lot and very quickly

b Farmer

Tue Mar 09, 2010 11:10 pm   

"pimpom" <pimpom_at_invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:hn63o3$ulj$1_at_news.albasani.net...

Here in the Chesapeake Bay region of the East Coast USA, just north of
Baltimore, we are currently enjoying a relatively warm spell after a
somewhat cooler than average winter. But more impressive was the amount of
snowfall, which is actually an effect of warmer atmospheric temperatures,
increased water vapor in the air, and the orientation of the jet stream. In
my area, we had over 80 inches of snow, which is unprecedented, and a couple
hundred miles to the west, at Keysers Ridge, they have had nearly 300 inches
of snow. We are known for wide fluctuations of weather, including 70 degrees
in January and snow in July, but these variations seem to be getting more
extreme in the last three decades.

There is no merit in looking at brief spells of local weather to affirm or
deny global warming, or even climate change, and it may be coincidence that
seems to identify human activity with the observations. But all efforts
toward reducing energy use and switching to renewable sources contribute to
the overall well-being of the average world citizen, and the opposition is
fueled by the perceived degradation of the lifestyles of those who have
benefitted from a non-sustainable consumption of resources.

But this was supposed to be not about AGW, and for now I am enjoying the
early spring weather. I saw the first Crocus blossom while walking my dog
today.

Paul

Tue Mar 09, 2010 11:10 pm   

"pimpom" <pimpom_at_invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:hn63o3$ulj$1_at_news.albasani.net...

Here in the Chesapeake Bay region of the East Coast USA, just north of
Baltimore, we are currently enjoying a relatively warm spell after a
somewhat cooler than average winter. But more impressive was the amount of
snowfall, which is actually an effect of warmer atmospheric temperatures,
increased water vapor in the air, and the orientation of the jet stream. In
my area, we had over 80 inches of snow, which is unprecedented, and a couple
hundred miles to the west, at Keysers Ridge, they have had nearly 300 inches
of snow. We are known for wide fluctuations of weather, including 70 degrees
in January and snow in July, but these variations seem to be getting more
extreme in the last three decades.

There is no merit in looking at brief spells of local weather to affirm or
deny global warming, or even climate change, and it may be coincidence that
seems to identify human activity with the observations. But all efforts
toward reducing energy use and switching to renewable sources contribute to
the overall well-being of the average world citizen, and the opposition is
fueled by the perceived degradation of the lifestyles of those who have
benefitted from a non-sustainable consumption of resources.

But this was supposed to be not about AGW, and for now I am enjoying the
early spring weather. I saw the first Crocus blossom while walking my dog
today.

Paul